Summer is just peachy to me

It's summer and it is as sweet as a white Georgia peach

seriously, to call
those slimy yellow things from a can a peach should be a crime against nature and cause for excommunication

Until later, eat well and enjoy the summer.

funny thing happened at the ballpark.......

So in my last blog I waxed poetic on the virtues of the the greastest sandwich at any ballpark which just happened to be be named after, in my opinion, the greatest Minnesota Twin of all time - Tony Oliva.
Call it fate, call it karma, call it manifesting my own destiny but a cool, crazy thing happened today during my latest visit to Target field.
My daughter Michelle (  www.justachefsdaughter.blogspot.com )  got off the train, went up the escalator grabed a couple Surly's, an IPA and a Saison, and headed over to the Tony Oliva Cuban sandwich stand, got our sandwiches, headed over to the condiment kiosk to get a little more more mustard and there he was in all his "outta be in the Hall of Fame glory" Senor Tony !!!!

The best sandwich at any ballpark

First of all I must, admit I have not been to every ballpark in the world but honestly, I don't need to, this sandwich is this good!!!!!

What!?!?  have you lost your mind?!?! How can you make such claims!?!?!?!

Chill out Guido it's just a great sandwich , I wasn't expecting a kind of Spanish Inquisition!

What is this sandwich? Drumroll please..........
It is the Tony Oliva Cuban

available just inside gate 34 of Target Field lurks roast pork and ham topped with swiss cheese, sliced pickles, and mustard in a crusty bread that is pressed panini style until the cheese goozes into the crevices in the roasted pork. Oh My God !!!!!

one last tip for the novice ballpark eater....

the sausage may cost 7 bucks but the condiments are free!



Musing in Chicago

Last week I happened to be in Chicago for training and having the evenings free to wander around(on foot) I of course decided that food would be a good way to pass the time. Here are a a few pics and my impressions of a few of them.

Sunday Night I was on my own and hungry for a deep dish Chicago - style pizza and as I was staying downtown in the Streeterville section I figured there was a good chance I would be able to find one.

*Travel tip #1* In an unfamilar city? make friends with a couple people - front desk,

bellstaff, and housekeeping. They best can be your best resource and make your trip more pleasant.

So I asked the front desk guy, who had an uncanny resemblance to Twins centerfielder Denard Span, where to go. His answer? Girodano's. He said it was his favorite, it was within walking distance, and he had a 20% off coupon.

Off to Superior street I go to order the house supreme( as recomended by Denard Span's doppelganger), which brings us to
*Travel Tip # 2 - if you are a single diner most places will let you sit at the bar and order off the full menu even without a reservation.

anyhoo..... I ordered the small supreme as it was to feed 1-3 people (yeah right).

1 small salad -ruffage is very, very, important - 2 goose island lagers - gotta stay hydrated- and 2 slices(slabs) of pizza later I am barely able to make the 4 block walk back to the hotel but when I did I did offer my take away to Denard and his co-workers which they gladly accepted.(see tip #1)

Pizza Notes  - crust nice flavor, corn meal texture - sauce a little bland, good slightly thick consistancy- fillings spicy sausage, peppers, onions delicious - and geezy was it cheesy. Well worth the 30 minute wait the pizza takes to bake.

Day 2 - The Weber Grill

As a "tourist-y" destination restaurant there were a lot of choices steaks, burgers, seafood, etc... I opted for the 3 meat grilled platter with sausage, brisket, and a house specialty grilled meatloaf with bbq beans and a bleu cheese, pecan cole slaw.

The meal was served with a really thick, sweet, bbq sauce, pretzel rolls with honey and cheddar cheese butters and I ordered a Weber Grill Backyard Ale ( again for hydration sake)

The meal was above average with the meatloaf being the star.

*Travel tip #3* If a restaurant denotes something as a house specialty they probably make it well and it is a fair bet that it will be good.

Tuesday- I was really looking forward to try a place called Coco Pazzo that I had read and heard about. It is a place similar to what I would love to run - higher end but still casual with the food being the main event , good wine good service. unfortuneately, Coco Pazzo was a little farther than we wanted to walk after a long day of training and as there were seven of us that wanted to eat together we really didn't want to coordinate cabs. Luckily for us the Coco Pazzo Cafe was 2 blocks from our hotel.

As I said, there were seven of us and we had not made a reservaton.

*Travel tip #4* If you have a group and no reservation, go early. If you don't mind eating around 6 pm, many places will seat you to fill in the "dead spaces" before the dinner crowd starts coming in.

My dinner for the evening was a rabbit ragu on fresh papardelli pasta which was really good and not a sauce I would usually ma.ke at home

And for dessert a semi- freddo made with cocoa and hazelnut with creme Anglaise

nothing more need be said.

On the last night our group of merry mucnchers decided to try another iconic Chicago pizza place just down the street from Girdano's  called Gino's east(not sure if there is a north, south, and west).

This time there were six of us so the occasion called for two pizza a sausae supreme and pepperoni.

as you can see the Gino's pie is a lot sloppier than the Girdano's and while Girdano's crust was much more flavorful the sauce on the Gino's was a nearly heavenly experience. Seriously if I were thrown in a vat of this stuff I would try to eat my way out and die a happy man if I couldn't make it. It was that good.

All in all I gotta agree with The Chairman of the Board when he sings " My kinds town Chicago is"  

One last tip --

* Traveler's tip #5- Many local places will open outposts in the airport and the best of these in Chicago's Midway airport is Manny's beef. I don't have a picture but  I do have memories of the corned bef on rye with mustard! 





We are the Champions!

This installment of A chef's musings will be a bit  of a departure from my normal fare.
Last weekend I had the honor and privilege to be part of a history making event, the inaugural Grill Fest in downtown Minneapolis sponsored by Minnesota Monthly magazine.


My good friends Kristy and Jon Bialk are the owners of Willingham's BBQ  and asked yours truly to be part of their team for the weekend.


 Please visit them at www.willinghamsbbq.com.

Although I was unable to attend on Saturday due to a previous engagement, the team presented the judging panel with a take on the BBQ classic plate of pork, beans and slaw by putting in a tortilla and inventing Tennessee tacos which was received so well that they won the day and were advanced to the championship round on Sunday. On Sunday Chef Eric Simpson from Hazeltine National Golf Course, Jon Bialk, Jim Dehnke, and myself prepared to do battle with the remaining team and the elements as it turned COLD(at times we were able to see our breath). Our meat for the day was, once again, pork tenderloin. Not a team to rest on our laurels, Chef Eric suggested a revamp of Saturdays offering by giving it an Asian twist, so with the addition of rice seasoned with Willingham's W'ham seasoning, we presented Memphis Mu Shu in a Chinese take out container.





Apparently the combination was good enough as the judges voted us Grand Champions!

Ladies and Gentlemen the 2012 Minnesota Monthly Grill Fest Grand champions !

more fun with fire bricks on the grill

So this weekend we celebrated Mother's Day on the grill with kabobs, and shrimp and as I was trying to find inspiration I perused thought Mario Batali's Italian Grill cookbook and I came across several recipes that were prepared Alla Piastra. Which according to Batali is a popular method in Friuli and along the Adriatic coast of Italy. Basically this means cooking on a flat griddle over a fire, in Greece it's a metal sheet called a Satz, and in Spain its called cooking ala plancha.
I started thinking to myself, I said self, you cook pizzas, bread, and all manners of flatbreads on the firebricks in your grill, why not cook the shrimp alla piastra ? So that's what I did.





O.k. so not the greatest photo but I had a hungry mother-in-law waiting for food !

The recipe was quick and easy and delicious
Put your firebricks on the grill and crank that sucker up! Let it get hot while you are doing the marinade.
1 lb raw shrimp(16-20 count) peeled, deveined, and butterflied
( if you don't know what that means, shame on you, look it up)

1/4 cup olive oil

the juice and zest of one orange ( I actually used a tangelo as that is what I had)

 1 tblsp each of fresh chopped parsley, mint, and basil

 1 clove garlic - smushed
 2 twists of fresh ground pepper
 put every thing in a large ziploc bag, seal, and shake the blazing bejeezus out of it to mix it all up, unseal the ziploc and squeeze out the air, reseal. let sit for 20 minutes.

 Take the shrimp out of the bag and throw them on the firebrick( throw away the marinade) cook them until they just turn pink, pull'em off and eat them By the way, turn the firebricks on the side and they make a great stand for kabobs - see below

Super easy pineapple trick

" Boat drinks, boys in the band ordered boat drinks, visitors scored on the home rink, every thing seems to be wrong". - Jimmy Buffet

What says boat drinks more than fresh pineapple? Ok most of you are probably thinking " but Chef, they are such a pain to clean, I'll just  spend the extra money and buy one already cleaned and cut" or worse you will get canned.
Save your money ( maybe put it toward better rum) ' cuz I'm going to show you the world's easiest method for cleaning this tropical delicacy.

To achieve this skill you will need a couple of highly specialized pieces of equipment.

 A knife and a cutting board. You really don't even need the cutting board but it will help eliminate any pineapple related domestic disputes arising from cut and sticky countertops.

A quick word about the knife. Please, please, please, use a knife that is at least as long as the width of the pineapple, preferably with a sharp tip. If you use a small paring knife you will get frustrated, smushy pineapple, and people will mock you mercilessly as a hack and a charlatan. I'm just saying.

Step 1: slice off the bottom and top of the pineapple

Steps 2&3: place pineapple on end and cut in half an then in half again.

Step 4: cut the core off

Steps 5&6: using the tip of your knife, cut into but not through the pineapple into whatever size you want

Now slide your blade between the pineapple and the rind, turn it around and do the same to the other side and the fruit should slide off the rind You can cut them thick or thin or if you cut then horizontally, you will get spears( which by the way are awesome dipped in chile powder).

So now with just a little practice you can have that pineapple cleaned and ready to eat in less than a minute. Seriously. No, really. Enjoy